In an effort to innovate beyond the iPod, Samsung has hired one of the software designers behind the iPod for its initiative mentioned here (January 10th) the first player he’ll work on being the YP-Z5, a Nano knockoff.

Looking at the pictures that have been floating around, it’s not really surprising that they would hire an iPod guy for UI design, although the interesting rub here is that originally, samsung was going to throw excessive amounts of money into advertising and producing devices that had multiple functions (ie: a TV and an MP3 player in one device). Instead, what they seem to be intent on doing is playing catchup with Apple by mimicking their devices. Not exactly part of the announced plan.

I find this interesting for numerous reasons, but the most obvious one is that when you’re trying to be innovative, original, and dominate the market, hiring away a software designer from your number one competitor would seem to be a step backward. Unless, of course, you’re only interested in producing a clone and not a competitor, in which case everything should be just fine.

At least they didn’t call it an iPod “killer.” God knows you can’t just be a competitor anymore, you have to be a sociopathic murderer.

I said it last time, C-Net quoted me on it, and I’ll say it again. Don’t expect to see thousands of Samsung YP’s on people’s hips come this spring. When choosing from a knockoff or the original, I’ll choose the original 9 times out of ten. I have a feeling many people are going to agree with me.

Technorati Tags: ipod, samsung, yp-z5, nano